The event raises money for services given by the Colorado AIDS Project: housing, medical insurance, transportation, counseling, testing, a food bank that delivers more than 150,000 meals a year. It is the region’s largest HIV and AIDS fundraiser, but gets less attention now in a time when Ebola and other outbreaks dominate the news.

“Now there are so many diseases that have come about that the public has switched over to other causes,” Trujillo said. “People aren’t dying en masse like they were in the 1990s. That has created a misconception that AIDS is over.”

The Colorado AIDS Walk raised a peak of $1.8 million in the late 1990s. Coordinators set this year’s target at $350,000. About two-thirds of that goal was met with donations from more than 13,000 people. A brightly clad stream of participants, ranging from children to seniors, embarked shortly after 9 a.m. on their 5-kilometer route through the leafy streets south of Cheesman Park.

Bruce Finley covers environment issues, the land air and water struggles shaping Colorado and the West. Finley grew up in Colorado, graduated from Stanford, then earned masters degrees in international relations as a Fulbright scholar in Britain and in journalism at Northwestern. He is also a lawyer and previously handled international news with on-site reporting in 40 countries.

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